


Fixation and Fragility

by roselew



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Character Study, Child Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 08:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7969468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roselew/pseuds/roselew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels as if his body has suffered more than it should have; as if some thin, vital part of him had snapped like silk beneath the strain; forgetting how to process anything that didn’t ache. It left him feeling hollowed-out, a negative space made to contain pain and nothing else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fixation and Fragility

**Author's Note:**

> A quickly-written and barely-edited character study of sorts. It will probably never be completed but I hope somebody will get some enjoyment from it regardless. 
> 
> Ciel is a very young boy at the mercy of severe trauma and a man whose main concern is managing the quality of his soul. 
> 
> Implied rape/noncon but it's very subtle and you'd probably miss it if you weren't looking. Warnings for references to child abuse.

Ciel arrives on the cusp of summer to a manor that was little but ash and dust only a few months ago, and how familiar the new building feels is unsettling in a way he never thought to expect. He had been braced for crumbling walls, had imagined plucking through the collapsed structure and being unable to identify his home amongst the rubble. 

 

However, everything is exactly as he remembers it being, and that fact alone makes him feel uneasy; walking halls that are identical to those he grew up in but have never been lived in; exploring rooms that he remembers in exquisite detail but has technically never visited. The image of his home, a glowing husk of smoke and flame like the core of an ember burns in his mind as he scans his surroundings for some sign of damage, for any evidence of the fire that ended his life as it was only a handful of months ago.

 

He goes from room to room with Sebastian at his heel, and tries to force away the ever-growing feeling of strangeness and surreality, noticing details that should not be present; that  _ could not _ be replicated with the delicacy that they have; cracks in the plaster walls, scuffs on the floorboards that could only be created by years of use. He eventually finds himself rendered motionless in his father’s old study, eyes fixed on the painstakingly replicated scratches and notches on the  polished surface of the desk that he can remember his father lamenting over. He almost reaches out, almost runs his fingertips over the impossibly present blemishes to convince himself of their accuracy, to prove that they aren’t a figment of his imagination, but Sebastian shifts minutely beside him, as if he is going to enquire after his silence, and Ciel becomes aware of himself again all at once. He raises his chin, forces his eyes to scan the room as if that was his intention all along, and spares only a glance to the butler at his side, as if daring him to mention his moment of weakness. 

 

Sebastian meets his gaze steadily, but remains silent, and Ciel can almost feel the vague distaste radiating from the demon, a response to his terribly human nostalgia. Ciel barely suppresses the urge to sneer purely out of spite. Sebastian had made it clear enough that he didn’t appreciate or understand the nuances of human emotion, and found most of them exhausting to deal with. Ciel doesn’t care much for Sebastian’s opinion, and cares even less to spare his discomfort.  He does, however, have enough pride not to allow himself to be overcome by something as insignificant as  _ grief.  _

 

Steeling his nerves, he turns away, briskly retracing his steps back to the main foyer of the manor. Mutely, he wishes that the building was pristine and perfect; that he felt less like the only remaining evidence of any wrongdoing was  _ himself.   _

 

_ \-- _

 

A week after he arrives ‘home’ his body still barely feels like his own, barely feels inhabitable. He can scarcely see his own skin beyond the bruising, the black-and-blue seeming to have sunk to his very core like ink into paper. His fingernails have been torn to ragged, bleeding edges that ache viciously and he cannot touch anything without remembering exquisitely the feel of his nails raking against stone, against steel, against  _ skin.   _

 

Part of him will not let him believe that his body has not always been this way; a sick sensation that flares to life whenever his body hurts in ways he has become used to, whenever he manages to dismiss the pain as being part of the norm. He feels as if his body has suffered more than it should have; as if some thin, vital part of him had snapped like silk beneath the strain; forgetting how to process anything that didn’t ache. It left him feeling hollowed-out, a negative space made to contain pain and nothing else.

 

He becomes desperate for ways to ground himself - the emptiness clenches in his stomach like a fist, like he hasn’t eaten in days, and though he can scarcely bear to be touched through the overwhelm of it all, clutching at the trembling curl of his own body is often all he can do, if only for the false sensation that he is holding himself together. He digs his fingernails into his scalp, presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, his throat, feeling the thrum of his heart like a moth beating against his ribs.

 

He finds that he can cross his arms, wrap his fingers around each opposite forearm and have his fingertips overlap, and he wonders at the weight that has fallen from his sickly body after his month of captivity, numbly tries to recall whether his limbs felt this brittle and willow-thin before. It becomes a habit, a comfort; squeezing the shape of his bones beneath the thin covering of flesh; pressing hard enough to bleach the skin. He hates the delicate whiteness and the fragile, thready blue veins running the length of his forearm, and digs his fingertips into them, chokes the flow of blood and half-hopes that the veins will rupture under his grip, that the bones with turn to ash, desperate for some feeling of pain he can latch onto and use to drag his body back to life. 

 

\--

 

His nightmares, for all that they’re sickening and detrimental to his recovery, have the decency to be consistent for a few months. He wakes screaming often enough, but the situation is always so familiar that he can manage to calm himself, without having to call for Sebastian’s help, as he would have done instinctively in the early days back at his new-old manor. 

 

One night, he dreams in fits and starts of traversing an endless forest; enveloped by trees so huge and numerous that if there is a sun, he cannot see it. He is barefoot, sinking into soft earth and moss, struggling to breathe the humid air and scrambling against rocks and roots. He catches glimpses of a bird soaring above; black aside from the crimson of its eyes and the white flash of its breast and it seems to endlessly evade him, leaving him frantic, desperate, tearful and gasping in a way that might have been crying if he thought he was able. 

 

Branches seem to close in on him, and he finds himself falling, becoming enveloped in the dirt and pitch-blackness and the crow finally descends, digs its talons into his chest deep enough to catch on his ribs and  _ purrs,  _ brings its gaping beak to his belly and digs in as if he’s a corpse. Ciel gasps, chokes on his own breath and spit and slicks his shaking fingers through the twin paths of trailing blood up his sides to his stomach, feeling beneath the crows hooked talons and the bird puts up no resistance when he urges it away, relenting to nestle into the space beside his throat and rasp against his ear. Ciel, thoughtlessly, automatically, gropes around the finger-thick hole in his flesh, and it doesn’t hurt, but he can feel the tender-hot sensation of flesh tearing as he digs his fingers in, hooking them beneath his sternum and grasping around the slippery swell of blood and the thudding pulse of his heart until his fingertips stumble across a foreign sharpness, gripping it with his fingernails against the slickness and pulling, threading the needle-thin length of it from his body and peering down as it flares from a quill to a  _ feather,  _ inky-black and barbed, slicked with blood and bile.

 

It slips free from his flesh so easily it’s as if he was built to contain it, and he is wrecked, dumbfounded, turning to retch onto the damp earth and the crow croons in his ear, nudges his tightly closed eyes as if it wants to pluck them from his skull like pearls. 

 

He wakes to blackness, all-encompassing and staggering and he cannot see Sebastian at the foot of his bed but he knows he is there nonetheless - can feel the tightly-restrained power coming from him like waves, like the incredible breadth of a bird’s wings encompassing the entire room.

 

Ciel’s rabbit-paced breaths quicken further, body reacting on instinct to the sense of a predator, a terrible, dangerous thing so close to him. Sebastian’s eyes shine, and he bears his teeth in a smile that is all the more inhuman for how kind it is. 

 

“A nightmare again, my lord?” He asks, voice quiet and low enough that it barely disturbs the silence, that Ciel’s breathing only sounds louder by comparison. Ciel swallows, tries desperately to make out Sebastian in the darkness but he almost seems to be part of it, shapeless and indistinguishable. He feels that Sebastian knows exactly what he dreamed about; that he’s only humouring him by asking.

 

“It was nothing.” He replies, voice cracking in his dry throat and he is too tired, too wrecked to pretend that he is not afraid. Even with all his ten years and some months of collective courage he cannot stand up to the devil himself. Sebastian comes closer, silently, brushes the hair away from Ciel’s face and touches his knuckles to his brow, damp with cold sweat and exhaustion, and Ciel cannot hide his flinch, finds himself hating the sick, pleased grin his reaction brings to Sebastian’s face.

 

He slaps Sebastian’s hands away, and glares at him with all the hatred and disgust he can muster, wanting more than anything to punish him in some way for his condescension, all the while knowing that he has no real way to do so.

 

“I told you it was nothing.” He says instead, digging his fingernails into his thighs and glaring at the crimson glint of Sebastian’s eyes in the darkness. For one long, impossibly silent moment, Sebastian holds his gaze before he blinks, slow and languid. His eyes stay heavy, lidded like a cat, and his smile fades and softens until it is only the barest curl at the edges of his lips. Ciel’s swallow sticks somewhere deep in his throat, fists tightening in the wrinkled hem of his nightshirt, and Sebastian’s gaze darts down to Ciel’s white knuckles before he inclines his head and moves soundlessly to the door of Ciel’s room. 

  
The dim light from the hall slants across the floor as Sebastian cracks open the door, and he vanishes with barely a shift in the air around him, shrouding Ciel in darkness once again.


End file.
